Crown-of-Thorn Starfish

I studied these starfish briefly when I was studying coral reefs. These starfish eat coral. in the 1960s there was a population boom of these starfish and there has been a spike in population about every 15 years since. Scientists blame nutrient run-off from farms. A team of scientists studied the levels of chlorophyll in the water. Run-off leads to high levels of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll shows the amount of food (phytoplankton) the starfish have to eat. A doubling of this chlorophyl makes it so ten times the starfish larvae survive. Scientists found that the run-off alone is able to cause the population spikes of crown-of-thorn starfish.